Sex Death Art - Skinner

US distribution - APIX Entertainment

World distribution - Cinequanon Pictures

Skinner, now there's a thing. A possible break into the big time with a feature film, written by me and filmed in the US.

But is that how it all worked out?

The story: Dennis Skinner is a psycho. What kind of psycho is he?
He's the mad kind

Taking inspiration from the life and works of Ed Gein, Dennis Skinner lives up to his name. He kills people and he skins them, using the skins to dress up in and get off.

Concept - dodgy.

Very dodgy in most people's books.Almost without exception the reaction to the script was unanimous. 'Are you kidding? There's no way we can make a movie like this!'

An interesting little aside:

I took the script to British Screen (a UK government backed film funding operation) and received the response as cited above.

Now being in one of my speak first, think later - if at all - modes, my reaction was something along the lines of... 'I bet if this script came in here with Peter Greenaway's name on it then it would get somewhere'.

This was at the time of 'The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover', meaning someone in the UK was making extreme movies and getting them released theatrically.
Anyway, the reaction from the guys was - 'Yes, you're probably right.'

You gotta love 'em

Psycho, Deranged, Silence of the Lambs - Ed Gein has been the inspiration behind several movies, so why not Skinner as well?

So Dennis comes to town. He's looking for a place to stay and finds it with a young married couple who are going through a few troubles of their own.

Now to complicate matters further - as if having a psychopath move into your house wasn't complicated enough - Dennis is being stalked.

But who'd
stalk a psychopath?

The stalker is a young woman. One of Dennis' early victims.

You see in the early days, Dennis was still trying to get to grips with the difficulties of his job.

So he whacks people, then proceeds to skin them. The problem with his first victim was that she wasn't quite dead when he began skinning her.
Now to make things even worse, Dennis was interupted... leaving this poor girl half dead and half skinned.

Hell hath no fury like a woman skinned

That line was kind of the inspiration for the entire movie - at least in terms of the writing of it.

Some times an idea pops into your head and no matter how much you try you just can't shake it. That line just summed up the entire movie for me.

So, where do we go from here with a film no one wants to make? You keep looking until you find someone who does want to make it.

The screenplay eventually wound up on the desk of the producer Brad Wyman - thanks to a good friend of mine, Justin Stanley (check out his movie The ShadowMen - from Promark Entertainment)

Brad has since moved onto pictures such as Freeway, Trees Lounge, Barbwire etc... but at the time had only done a handful of movies and it was a real good time for me to hook up with a US producer.

I was already back in England when the call came through from Brad saying that he had the money to make the picture.

You see originally the intention had been that I was going to direct the picture - you've got to start someplace.

Anyway, Brad had a lead on some money but it came attached to a director.

It's at these times that you have to make certain decisions.

Do I

a: thank them for their offer and wait until someone else comes along with money without strings.

or
b: take the money and run.

I took the money.

So the script was FedEx'd to the production office in LA and that was the end of my involvement in the production.

It wasn't until October that I took a trip to Los Angeles and saw a rough cut of the movie and met the director - Ivan Nagy.
Now it's all these people behind the scenes that really make this business so interesting.

In some senses I was quite lucky because Brad was good enough to let me actually write the script for this movie. They wanted to shoot it pretty much as it was written. I got a few pages of notes for rewrites but that was about all.
So, whatever you think of the finished piece - and it got a hell of a rating on the Internet Movie Database.

The only thing I will say in my defense is that I have no recollection of ever having put the word 'procrastinate' in any one of my movies. So when that pops out of Ricki Lake's mouth, I have no idea where it came from.

For a movie of this size, I think the final budget was no more than $500,000, the casting was not so bad. Ted Raimi, Traci Lords and Ricki Lake - not bad names if you think about it. I know Ricki doesn't like to talk about it but you can read interviews with Ted in places like Fangoria - I don't know which issue.

Traci Lords did a short interview in Calendar section of the LA Times shortly after filming but the film didn't receive much publicity until a little incident involving a certain movie director and his former girlfriend.

The story goes a little something like this...

When I wrote the movie, the character played by Traci Lords was called Vicky. Not for any other reason than it was short for 'victim'. Her character was meant to have been so totally consumed by what Dennis had done to her so I didn't want any kind of baggage attached to a name for her character.

So, when I finally watched the movie and saw that they'd renamed her 'Heidi' I was a little shocked.
Now it wasn't until this whole scandal thing blew wide open that things began to make sense.

Let's cut to a year later.

I'm in LA watching the news on tv when what do I see but Ivan Nagy being lead into court as part of that whole Heidi Fleiss thing that was going down.

Now all of this was news (excuse the pun) to me but it suddenly became apparent why the character name had been changed.

At least that's my theory.

If you're near a book store you can flick through the book 'Hit & Run' about the time when Peters & Guber were in charge at Sony Pictures as there's a little mention of 'Skinner' in there somewhere.

As you'd expect, people are rarely entirely happy with the finished results. In film-making it is such a huge collaborative effort that something is bound to get lost in the mix.
When you see the process at first hand you sometimes wonder how any decent movies get made at all.

Artistically speaking I would rather Ted had kept his pants off throughout the movie - as it was written. It would have given his character a little more edge.

My favourite scene is undoubtedly the skinning scene. It's not just the gorehound in me but also the fact that it's a real full body skinning - in your face. Nice one KNB!!
I know they do a skin removal in 'Hellraiser III' but the one in 'Skinner' is real .

It's been quite a time since I watched the movie so my memory of it isn't as good as it should be.
It did get screened on cable tv in the UK - on the almost impossible to get HVC channel - and someone was good enough to make me a copy... but the quality of the tape was pretty substandard - unfortunately I don't know whether it was the tape or the broadcast.

The movie is also available in the U.S. on DVD - see below for links to sites where you can actually purchase of copy for yourself.

If you don't already know, Ted Raimi has a few websites dedicated to his career, including those covering Xena Warrior Princess & Seaquest.

If you want to find out more about Ted then click on the Ring of Ted Raimi link at the bottom of the page to check out some of the other sites dedicated to the man and his work.

Crew		List:
Genre:		Horror
Distributor: Worldwide USA		Cinequanon International Pictures A-Pix Entertainment
Production Company:		Skinner Films
Executive Producers:		Nelson Korchak Mark Beychok
Producers:		Brad Wyman Jeff Pollon
Director:		Ivan Nagy
Screenplay:		Paul Hart-Wilden
Director of Photography:		Gregory Littlewood
Editor:		Peter Schenk
Music:		Contagion
Cast:		Ted Raimi Traci Lords Ricki Lake David Warshofsky

Additional Info:		shot Nov 7, 1992 - Dec 1992 Screened at MIFED Festival Oct 24-29 1993
		Released in US July 12, 1995 Available 'R' rated & un-rated on Video, Laserdisc & DVD.
		Broadcast on cable station HVC in UK. Filmed in Los Angeles

If there are any comments or queries regarding this film... please drop me a line.

Now cruising round the internet as I often find myself doing I've been more than impressed/flattered/surprised to have found a few other places where you can actually see stuff about 'Skinner'.

The first of these sites was set up by Beth Smarr who decided that she would actually like to put together her own website devoted to 'Skinner'.
Blood Visions is a film review website which seems to specialise in horrific types of material. I have to include this site 'cos he actually gives 'Skinner' a 4 skull rating!!!

Contagion were the band who composed the soundtrack for the movie. This appears to be their website and it's worth a look 'cos it's got some good 'Skinner' graphics.

This 'site appears to be by the guy who drew up the 'Skinner' artwork that you see at the top of the page.

Sometimes in this life you come across something which manages to stir something inside, something whch makes you realise that all the hard work which goes into this kind of stuff is worth it.

On a little jaunt around the web I stumbled across some people who have been so moved by 'Skinner' that they have actually put finger to keyboard to produce some fan fiction based on my creation.

Please go take a look and let them know what you think.

Stories about Dennis Skinner written by

Julia Donnelly, Azina Zelle & G. Bonobo

Another site featuring 'Skinner' derived fiction by Azina Zelle

Now many - well some - of you might already have seen 'Skinner', either on your tv, on video or DVD.

For those of you that haven't you could always put a bit of your hard earned cash towards buying your own personal copy of the movie. The guys below will sort you out.


If you come across any other pages or 'sites featuring my movie - or if you've put one together yourself - then please drop me a line and let me know where to find it.

This is A Ring of Ted Raimi site owned by PAUL HART-WILDEN - as if you didn't know....

Want to join the A Ring of Ted Raimi?

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The story:	Dennis Skinner is a psycho. What kind of psycho is he?	He's the mad kind
	Taking inspiration from the life and works of Ed Gein, Dennis Skinner lives up to his name. He kills people and he skins them, using the skins to dress up in and get off.

The story: Dennis Skinner is a psycho. What kind of psycho is he? He's the mad kind Taking inspiration from the life and works of Ed Gein, Dennis Skinner lives up to his name. He kills people and he skins them, using the skins to dress up in and get off.

Concept - dodgy. Very dodgy in most people's books.Almost without exception the reaction to the script was unanimous. 'Are you kidding? There's no way we can make a movie like this!'

The stalker is a young woman. One of Dennis' early victims.

You see in the early days, Dennis was still trying to get to grips with the difficulties of his job.

So he whacks people, then proceeds to skin them. The problem with his first victim was that she wasn't quite dead when he began skinning her. Now to make things even worse, Dennis was interupted... leaving this poor girl half dead and half skinned.

Hell hath no fury like a woman skinned

That line was kind of the inspiration for the entire movie - at least in terms of the writing of it.

Some times an idea pops into your head and no matter how much you try you just can't shake it. That line just summed up the entire movie for me.

So, where do we go from here with a film no one wants to make? You keep looking until you find someone who does want to make it.

The screenplay eventually wound up on the desk of the producer Brad Wyman - thanks to a good friend of mine, Justin Stanley (check out his movie The ShadowMen - from Promark Entertainment)

Brad has since moved onto pictures such as Freeway, Trees Lounge, Barbwire etc... but at the time had only done a handful of movies and it was a real good time for me to hook up with a US producer.

I was already back in England when the call came through from Brad saying that he had the money to make the picture.

You see originally the intention had been that I was going to direct the picture - you've got to start someplace.

Anyway, Brad had a lead on some money but it came attached to a director.

It's at these times that you have to make certain decisions.

Do I a: thank them for their offer and wait until someone else comes along with money without strings. or b: take the money and run. I took the money.

Do I

a: thank them for their offer and wait until someone else comes along with money without strings.

or b: take the money and run.

I took the money.

So the script was FedEx'd to the production office in LA and that was the end of my involvement in the production.

It wasn't until October that I took a trip to Los Angeles and saw a rough cut of the movie and met the director - Ivan Nagy. Now it's all these people behind the scenes that really make this business so interesting.

The only thing I will say in my defense is that I have no recollection of ever having put the word 'procrastinate' in any one of my movies. So when that pops out of Ricki Lake's mouth, I have no idea where it came from.

Traci Lords did a short interview in Calendar section of the LA Times shortly after filming but the film didn't receive much publicity until a little incident involving a certain movie director and his former girlfriend.

The story goes a little something like this...

When I wrote the movie, the character played by Traci Lords was called Vicky. Not for any other reason than it was short for 'victim'. Her character was meant to have been so totally consumed by what Dennis had done to her so I didn't want any kind of baggage attached to a name for her character.

So, when I finally watched the movie and saw that they'd renamed her 'Heidi' I was a little shocked. Now it wasn't until this whole scandal thing blew wide open that things began to make sense.

Let's cut to a year later.

I'm in LA watching the news on tv when what do I see but Ivan Nagy being lead into court as part of that whole Heidi Fleiss thing that was going down.

Now all of this was news (excuse the pun) to me but it suddenly became apparent why the character name had been changed.

At least that's my theory.

If you're near a book store you can flick through the book 'Hit & Run' about the time when Peters & Guber were in charge at Sony Pictures as there's a little mention of 'Skinner' in there somewhere.

As you'd expect, people are rarely entirely happy with the finished results. In film-making it is such a huge collaborative effort that something is bound to get lost in the mix. When you see the process at first hand you sometimes wonder how any decent movies get made at all.

As you'd expect, people are rarely entirely happy with the finished results. In film-making it is such a huge collaborative effort that something is bound to get lost in the mix. When you see the process at first hand you sometimes wonder how any decent movies get made at all.

Artistically speaking I would rather Ted had kept his pants off throughout the movie - as it was written. It would have given his character a little more edge.

My favourite scene is undoubtedly the skinning scene. It's not just the gorehound in me but also the fact that it's a real full body skinning - in your face. Nice one KNB!! I know they do a skin removal in 'Hellraiser III' but the one in 'Skinner' is real .

The movie is also available in the U.S. on DVD - see below for links to sites where you can actually purchase of copy for yourself.

If you don't already know, Ted Raimi has a few websites dedicated to his career, including those covering Xena Warrior Princess & Seaquest.

If you want to find out more about Ted then click on the Ring of Ted Raimi link at the bottom of the page to check out some of the other sites dedicated to the man and his work.

Now cruising round the internet as I often find myself doing I've been more than impressed/flattered/surprised to have found a few other places where you can actually see stuff about 'Skinner'.

The first of these sites was set up by Beth Smarr who decided that she would actually like to put together her own website devoted to 'Skinner'.

Contagion were the band who composed the soundtrack for the movie. This appears to be their website and it's worth a look 'cos it's got some good 'Skinner' graphics.

Stories about Dennis Skinner written by

Julia Donnelly, Azina Zelle & G. Bonobo

The story: Dennis Skinner is a psycho. What kind of psycho is he?
He's the mad kind

Taking inspiration from the life and works of Ed Gein, Dennis Skinner lives up to his name. He kills people and he skins them, using the skins to dress up in and get off.

Concept - dodgy.

Very dodgy in most people's books.Almost without exception the reaction to the script was unanimous. 'Are you kidding? There's no way we can make a movie like this!'

So he whacks people, then proceeds to skin them. The problem with his first victim was that she wasn't quite dead when he began skinning her.
Now to make things even worse, Dennis was interupted... leaving this poor girl half dead and half skinned.

Do I

a: thank them for their offer and wait until someone else comes along with money without strings.

or
b: take the money and run.

I took the money.

or
b: take the money and run.

It wasn't until October that I took a trip to Los Angeles and saw a rough cut of the movie and met the director - Ivan Nagy.
Now it's all these people behind the scenes that really make this business so interesting.

So, when I finally watched the movie and saw that they'd renamed her 'Heidi' I was a little shocked.
Now it wasn't until this whole scandal thing blew wide open that things began to make sense.

As you'd expect, people are rarely entirely happy with the finished results. In film-making it is such a huge collaborative effort that something is bound to get lost in the mix.
When you see the process at first hand you sometimes wonder how any decent movies get made at all.

As you'd expect, people are rarely entirely happy with the finished results. In film-making it is such a huge collaborative effort that something is bound to get lost in the mix.
When you see the process at first hand you sometimes wonder how any decent movies get made at all.

My favourite scene is undoubtedly the skinning scene. It's not just the gorehound in me but also the fact that it's a real full body skinning - in your face. Nice one KNB!!
I know they do a skin removal in 'Hellraiser III' but the one in 'Skinner' is real .